Six Bad Résumé Ideas—and Three Good Ones

Six Bad Résumé Ideas—and Three Good Ones

An applicant said he was a genius and invited the hiring manager to interview him at his home.

With unemployment still high, many job seekers are feeling the heat when it comes to standing out amid a very large sea of candidates. But there's a fine line between being creative and coming up with something that quickly ends up in the recipient's "delete" folder. To demonstrate the difference, CareerBuilder reveals the following six résumé blunders, along with three winning creative efforts, which it compiled from a recent survey of nearly 2,300 U.S. hiring managers. Clearly, there's pressure on applicants to distinguish themselves. One in five HR managers spends less than 30 seconds reviewing applications, and about 40 percent spend less than a minute, according to the survey. "It's a highly competitive job market, and you have to clearly demonstrate how your unique skills and experience are relevant and beneficial to that particular employer," says Rosemary Haefner, vice president of human resources at CareerBuilder. "We see more people using infographics, QR codes and visual résumés to package their information." That said, employment experts say that good judgment should always rule the day.

Advertiser Disclosure:
Some of the products that appear on this site are from companies from which QuinStreet receives compensation. This compensation may impact how and where products appear on this site including, for example, the order in which they appear. QuinStreet does not include all companies or all types of products available in the marketplace.